are valid, but in a tumult they
are not. So that it is the fact, as I have said, that war can exist
without a tumult, but a tumult cannot exist without a war. In truth,
as there is no medium between war and peace, it is quite plain that a
tumult, if it be not a sort of war, must be a sort of peace; and what
more absurd can be said or imagined? However, we have said too much
about a word; let us rather look to the facts, O conscript fathers,
the appreciation of which, I know, is at times injured by too much
attention being paid to words.

II. We are unwilling that this should appear to be a war. What is
the object, then, of our giving authority to the municipal towns
and colonies to exclude Antonius? of our authorizing soldiers to be
enlisted without any force, without the terror of any fine, of their
own inclination and eagerness? of permitting them to promise money for
the assistance of the republic? For if the name of war be taken away,
the zeal of the municipal towns will be taken away too. And the
unanimous feeling of the Roman people which at present pours itself
into our cause, if we cool upon it, must inevitably be damped.

But why need I say more? Decimus Brutus is attacked. Is not that war?
Mutina is besieged. Is not even that war? Gaul is laid waste. What
peace can be more assured than this? Who can think of calling that
war? We have sent forth a consul, a most gallant man, with an army,
who, though he was in a weak state from a long and serious illness,
still thought he ought not to make any excuse when he was summoned to
the protection of the republic. Caius Caesar, indeed, did not wait for
our decrees; especially as that conduct of his was not unsuited to his
age. He undertook war against Antonius of his own accord; for there
was not yet time to pass a decree; and he saw that, if he let slip the
opportunity of waging war, when the republic was crushed it would be
impossible to pass any decrees at all. They and their arms, then, are
now at peace. He is not an enemy whose garrison Hirtius has driven
from Claterna; he is not an enemy who is in arms resisting a consul,
and attacking a consul elect; and those are not the words of an enemy,
nor is that warlike language, which Pansa read just now out of his
colleague's letters: "I drove out the garrison." "I got possession of
Claterna." "The cavalry were routed." "A battle was fought." "A good
many men were slain." What peace can be greater than this? Levies of